Reliquary

This work considers history, memory and the objects we revere, how the act of constant collecting coincides with an inability to release pain despite the body’s attempt to shed excess, regenerate, even heal. Here, the quilt form is the vessel for the tangible and intangible components of a life, couching themes of motherhood, family and loss with traditional stitching and handwork. A “romance with the fragment” begins when our childhood pockets fill with relics from the natural world, and later, as adults, when we fill our most vacant spaces with the weight of the spiritual. The body is the ultimate reliquary for pain and loss; we are shaped and defined by what we cling to, despite its worthlessness.